per cent of the total population. It indicates in the second place, that only the two states, California and Washington, have any considerable number of Japanese. California has not far from three fifths of those in the continental United States, Washington something less than a sixth. The remaining states have only a little less than a quarter of the entire number. This uneven distribution of the Japanese population results from two facts, viz. that most of the Japanese have entered the United States at San Francisco or Seattle, and that there has been a return movement from the Rocky Mountain states to the Coast because of better climatic conditions and better opportunities for business and intensive agriculture found there.

Relative Importance in the Population. The number of Japanese appears to be insignificant. Yet in some localities this is not so, for the members of this race, as new immigrants are prone to do, have colonized to a very considerable extent so as to avail themselves of their own institutions and of the best opportunities. In other states the situation is not unlike that in California, where the records of the Japanese Association in 1910 gave a few counties and the larger cities the larger part of the total of 55,000. The numbers in each of 35 counties and 8 cities, together with the percentages of the total populations according to Dr. Ichihashi, were as follows:1

1 Y. Ichihashi, Japanese Immigration, p. 16.

munities, the uneven distribution could be more truthfully and adequately presented. It is a matter of much significance in connection with different phases of the Japanese problem. In many places the Japanese are not lost in the population. Moreover, when dealing with matters pertaining to labor, it must be held in mind that most of the Japanese are adults and relatively few of the entire number are not gainfully occupied. Industrially the Japanese are a much larger factor in the population than these figures would indicate. In some industries and occupations, indeed, they are a very important factor, for here again those employed are distributed very unevenly among the several occupations and branches of industry.

Occupations of the Japanese. — Though it observed that any accurate statement concerning the occupational distribution of Japanese was impossible because of the migration from one locality and one industry to another during the year, the Immigration Commission, in 1909, estimated the number employed in city trades and business in the West at from 22,000 to 26,000, in agriculture as laborers or farmers, when largest, at some 38,000 or 40,000, in railroad work at 10,000, in lumber mills at 2,200, in mines at 2,000, in salmon canneries at 3,600. The number gainfully occupied in other ways was insignificant. Though these figures are for the largest number during the year and overlap some

1 Immigration Commission, Reports, Vol. 23, p. 32. Unfortunately the Census does not report the occupations of Japanese separately.

what, they show fairly accurately the relative importance of their several branches of employment at that time. While from data at hand it is impossible to give corresponding figures for the present occupational distribution of Japanese, the relative numbers employed in lumber mills, fish canneries, and railroad work, have diminished, those engaged in agriculture have increased considerably, and those in city trades and business slightly.1

1 The estimates made by the Japanese-American for 1913 are believed to exaggerate the number in certain employments and the total somewhat, but the occupational distribution of adult males was reported as follows:

CHAPTER II

THE JAPANESE AS WAGE EARNERS IN INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS

Present Situation differs from that when Immigration not greatly Restricted. The occupational distribution of the Japanese, indicated at the close of the preceding chapter, differs materially from that of the time when immigration was at its height and unrestricted. So does almost every other aspect of the situation. If one would secure a proper basis for conclusions as to the problem of Japanese immigration in its broader aspects, he must not only be most careful in the use and interpretation of available statistical data (and the instances of abuse are far more numerous than those of proper use by those who oppose as well as those who defend the Japanese), but be careful also to consider what was true when the volume was larger as well as what is true now when it is smaller and those who are here occupy a somewhat unusual position in the various occupations. That the wages of Japanese averaged as much at some time as those of some groups of workers of other races does not prove that they did not underbid in order to secure employment. That they at times underbid proves nothing with reference to the desirability of a limited or a selected immigration. That the wages of